Sponsoring migrant workers: What are the tiers?

Tier 1 - for highly skilled workers, such as scientists and entrepreneurs

Tier 2 - for skilled workers with a job offer, such as teachers and nurses

Tier 4 - for students

Tier 5 - for temporary workers, such as musicians coming to play in a concert, and participants
in the youth mobility scheme.

Tier 3 is currently suspended.

In his experience, hiring really high calibre tech people is extremely difficult.

"There’s a huge skills shortage in tech and startups really struggle because we can’t afford the
wages that the corporates can pay their employees," Paterson said. "There’s a shortage in an
already limited pool - even in London - that everyone’s competing for.”

While his Entrepeneur Visa was turned around in two weeks and was critical to growing the
company, his co-founder is unable to join him in the UK. As a result, the co-founders make business
decisions over the phone.

Andrew Humphries, dealmaker, global entrepreneur programme for the UKTI and co-founder of AdTech
startup accelerator The Bakery, claims skills in areas like computer science are being hampered by
the education system.

“There is a problem in the way we recognise qualifications that exist for young people in
the tech space," Humphries said. "The graduates that we have here and in the EU, unfortunately, are
just not as good as those from universities in countries like the US and India.”

Humphries believes the skills shortage can be addressed in three ways: Through educating young
people at school and university level in computer science skills; offering retraining facilities
for those workers whose skills are out of date; and by having the correct “open door” policy to
allow workers from abroad to fill the skills gap.

Complicated immigration rules

A closed door

Computer Weekly spoke to Oojal Jhutti, CEO of the startup iWazat, who has struggled to hire
developers due to the UK skills shortage and also faced difficulties hiring from abroad. He wanted
to hire an Indian student who had just finished his M.Eng course at Birmingham University at the
end of last year. Jhutti wanted him to help build up the company and began the process of becoming
a sponsor for his Tier 2 visa application, after failing to succeed with the entrepreneur visa and
the Tier 1 visa.

“We wanted to employ him directly, but we weren’t mature enough to sponsor him as a company as
our turnover was so low,” says Jhutti. “As a startup you don’t tick all the right boxes compared to
corporates.”

The student was sent back to Indian within a few weeks of finishing his studies – a time period
that Jhutti doesn’t believe is enough to apply for a visa.

“These guys are really smart – the top of their class. Why wouldn’t you want to keep them in the
country after spending time educating them?” he says. Since returning to India, the former student
has not been able to find an appropriate job, according to Jhutti.

Jhutti wants the government to change its immigration policy in regards to students. While he
has been able to expand his business thanks to the Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS), Jhutti
admits he cannot afford to spend a significant amount of his investment competing with corporates
on salaries.

Technology startups are calling out for the government to improve the visa application process.
Paterson said the process needs to be made easier to “make London the international tech hub that
it is trying to be.”

But unlike large corporations, startups may not have a formal HR department or a fully-fledged
HR system.

Victoria Sharkey, managing partner at the immigration law firm MediVisas, said that there are
many hoops that companies have to jump through to be able to get a sponsorship licence. The startup
has to collect and submit original documentation and if there is a problem and it is rejected, the
employer has to start the process again.

Immigration struggles

Computer Weekly also spoke to a student from New York, who has struggled with UK’s immigration
policies.

After her studies at LSE, the student, who wishes to remain anonymous, was offered a job by a
high profile startup accelerator in London. She too found that once her student visa expired, she
had no time to submit a change in visa and had to return to the US. She travelled back to the UK
for short periods of time on her six-month work visa.

The startup accelerator sponsored her for a Tier 2 visa and it began the process of hire

Unfortunately during the travelling back and forth, she was found to be carrying a can of pepper
spray (legal in the US, illegal in the UK) in her handbag at the airport. She was arrested and then
cautioned in the UK, but told she would not need to put this on her visa application.

In April 2013, she received a letter from the UK embassy saying that her visa was denied and she
was banned from visiting the UK for 10 years as punishment for provided false information. She is
currently appealing and trying to get the ban lifted.

“This all takes time, even when no mistakes are made, and of course startups are subject to
closer scrutiny,” Sharkey said. “We have seen companies apply for sponsor licences and wait for
four, five, even six months to get the approval, and often by the time it comes the applicant has
either had to leave the UK or has got fed up of waiting and has taken a different job.”

Eric
van der Kleij, head of the L39 fintech accelerator, previously CEO of Tech City, believes the
government should invest money into creating experts that can go and teach young companies how to
hire people from outside the UK.

“You have to have a reasonably robust system so it’s not abused,” said van der Kleij. “That
means it has to be of some substance that a young company is able to grip it and do it, yet it’s
the same system that a major corporation with massive resources can use – it’s a bit unfair.

“You can’t change the robustness of the system or it will be abused, but you should spend the
money on helping younger companies use the system.”

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